Awesome Science

Handwriting without Tears aims to make legible and fluent handwriting an automatic, mastered skill. Simple for home educators to use, lessons take only 15 minutes a day. The main objective for students is to achieve goals, not to finish a set number of pages.

You can purchase a student and teacher book or a complete kit.

Volumes for the print version include:

Pre-Kindergarten: Children learn joyfully with the multisensory readiness activities in My First School Book. Children of different abilities develop and practice crucial readiness and pre-writing skills.

Kindergarten: Lessons teach capitals, lowercase letters, and numbers. Activities form good handwriting habits and develop strong writers.

First grade: Lessons emphasize the correct use of lowercase letters in words and sentences.  Activity pages combine handwriting instruction with other language arts lessons.

Second grade:  Learn & Check helps teachers and students check letter, word, and sentence skills. Activity pages combine handwriting instruction with punctuation, paragraph, poem, and language arts activities for practice.

Note:  Third through Fifth grade curriculum are also available, but are only in cursive.

Classical Phonics is a deceptively simple little book our teachers and families use constantly in both kindergarten and first grade. It consists of phonetically arranged word lists for students to practice their growing phonics skills. In a word list there are no context clues, so the learner must rely on his mastery of letter sounds. For instance, if your child can pronounce each word in this list correctly – pot, pat, pit, put, pet – he knows his short vowel sounds, and you can move on to long vowels! If not, he needs more practice, and Classical Phonics is the most effective tool we know of to address the repetition that young ones need when learning to read. Classical Phonics can be used as a supplement to any phonics program, and covers nearly all English phonograms and sounds taught through second grade. Classical Phonics is your handy tool for phonics practice and for building confident readers.

The innovative Rhythm of Handwriting curriculum from Logic of English is designed to accompany the Essentialscurriculum, or serve as stand-alone writing course (it’s already built-in to the LoE Foundations series). Offering a multi-sensory approach that helps students develop fluid, natural, legible handwriting, this curriculum focuses on the kinesthetic movement of each stroke and the use of rhythmic verbal cues that guide students through the formation of each letter.

This program uses a custom font that was designed to be developmentally appropriate for young students and students struggling with handwriting. It is suitable for students of all ages who desire to master or improve their handwriting.

The Student Book is all that is needed to teach the course; the supplemental tactile cards and charts (all available in either cursive or manuscript) are not required. Both the cards and charts feature such detailed information that handwriting could be taught using only one or the other of those resources.

Points, lines, planes, angles, circles, triangles, quadrilaterals, Pythagorean Theorem, conic sections, proofs and more.

The Geometry Instruction Pack contains the instruction manual with lesson-by-lesson instructions and detailed solutions, and the DVD with lesson-by-lesson video instruction.

An Online Co-op Class is available for this level.

TeenCoder: Java Programming is the first semester course of the “TeenCoder” Java and Android course-year (and is followed by TeenCoder Android Programming), and teaches students in grades 9-12 how to create graphical and console applications using object-oriented design concepts. Students can teach themselves by following the user-friendly book & course CD as they complete the activities integrated into each chapter. Lessons written using plenty of screenshots and visually distinct programming language fonts ensure that instructions and code are clearly understood. Student activities and fully coded solutions for all activities are included. Plus, students can also use this course to study for the AP Computer Science A exam!

No prior computer programming or HTML experience is required; the other year of TeenCoder, the C# series, can be completed before or after this course. Students should know the basics of computer use, understand how to store and load files on the hard disk, and navigate the file system and directory structures. Course CD with set-up program is also included. 274 pages, indexed, softcover. Reproducible for personal use only. An optional Java Programming Supplemental Instructional DVD, 2nd Edition is also available for this course, which covers every chapter and lesson with fun, animated videos (sold separately). Covers one semester. 2nd Edition.

Illuminations is a practical, comprehensive, customizable curriculum guide, covering Bible, language arts (grammar, writing, copywork, spelling, and vocabulary), literature, science, geography, history, and life skills built to wrap around The Mystery of History series or All American History series. (Math is not scheduled in Illuminations.) Each year of Illuminations contains lesson plans, guides, and reading schedules for grades 3–12. If you have younger children, they can join in with the older students thanks to the additional teaching ideas for grades K–2. In Illuminations we’ve chosen curriculum that you can pick up and use without a lot of advance preparation. Purchase the novels, textbooks, and resources on our book lists, and all of the planning for the entire year is done for you! Use our Illuminations Build-A-Bundle Tool to make purchasing even easier.